My many thanks to Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter and Trump nemesis for making it crystal clear this evening on MSNBC.
The problem with trying to figure out an accurate assessments of Trump’s actual assets is that there are no reliable numbers. Since The Trump Organization is not a publicly traded company, it is not required to file the normal quarterly paperwork with the SEC. That’s why Trump never went public, even though it would have handed him a cash cow. He didn’t want supervision.
In an earlier story today, a reader provided a link to an article that put Trump’s estimated net worth is approximately $2.3 billion, with an estimated $463 million cash on hand last September. That’s fine as far as it goes. But if Trump’s net real estate value is $2.3 billion, but he jas some $600 million in debt on the properties, then he really isn’t worth $2.3 billion, he’d only net about $700 million on liquidation. The problem is, nobody really knows what he has and what he owes. But we’re about to, because Trump needs to liquidate cash.
One of the things that NY AG James asked for that she didn’t get was a lifetime ban on Trump operating a business in New York. Instead Jydge Engoron suspended him for three years and put him under adult supervision thereafter.
It was Johnson that made that make sense. Almost every physical asset Trump has over $1.50 is tied up in receivership. If Engogon barred Traitor Tot and his monkey spawn for life, that would mean that the assets of the organization would have to be liquidated and disbursed. That would mean a fire sale, with the vultures sweeping in to scoop up properties at bargain basement prices. Which would give nobody a maximum fair value on the assets. Letting the company survive allows the court to control the burn so to speak when liquidating assets. Makes perfect sense.
But that is exactly the problem Traitor Tot is about to run into, but without the court being involved. Johnson said tonight that most of Trump’s physical real estate assets outside of New York are tied up in a handful of skyscrapers and luxury condos in several states, along with golf courses. And therein lies the problem.
After today, every single large real estate or investment broker in the world knows that Trump. Needs. Cash. And knowing that simple fact makes all the difference in the world in how they deal with Trump, no matter where he’s selling property.
Let’s just say that Trump has a skyscraper business tower in Chicago that’s worth $400 million. Trump quietly puts the property on the market for $400 million. But everybody knows it’s Trump. And why would anybody not named Trump want to give Trump more than $275 million for the property? They know he’s over the barrel, and will have to settle for the max the market will give him. So he gets $275 million, and if, as I expect, he’s carrying about $120 million in debt on the building, then he walks away with about $175 million on a $400 million property.
And this will be repeated no matter where he goes, or what he tries to sell. The sharks smell blood in the water. And Trump has been nothing if not an arrogant, overbearing pr*ck. It will be like a gift from God for them to be able to get a little of their own back.
You shouldn’t have to be all that patient, this should all take place fairly quickly. For instance Trump now has 22 days left to come up with the $88.4 million to appeal the Carroll decision. And if as I expect Judge Engoron officially enters his judgement into the record next week, then the 30 day clock starts for him to scrape up another $455 million to appeal that ruling. And what Trump owns is already well known. It’s just a matter of waiting to see what quietly hits the market and what it sells for. Patience, grasshopper.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Trump won’t be selling any assets, the court will. And the court has a fiduciary responsibility to get the best price possible. There are some properties of his that are not obviously tied to him that I think they would try to sell first, if necessary. They certainly don’t won’t to set off a fire sale. If nothing else, they want their disgorgement.
I hope he does appeal because the interest just keeps compounding at 9 percent, so he could end up on the hook for more than $600 mil.
No…The court only owns assets located in New York state…Trump can sell anything lese at his leisure…
You may be right. But my understanding is the court controls the Trump Org, HQs in NY, and all the assets it owns wherever situated.
Here’s where this could get REALLY interesting, and maybe even cause Trump to hire a food tester. Most, if not all his best properties he actually (in theory at least) owns are golf courses/resorts. Doral is a dumb. Both the hotel and the course itself. “The Doral” was once a staple of the PGA’s Florida swing and even in the old days long before Trump attracted some top players each year. But the “Blue Monster” wasn’t all that well liked and even before Trump acquired it The Doral had become a second tier event. He managed to attract a handful of top names somehow but once he tricked it out the said fuckit. Even solid journeyman players started to skip and the field overall was down just about feeder/minor league tour status. When the PGA decided Trump was bad for THEIR brand they pulled the event. What really had to gall Trump was that after all his trashing of Mexico the year after the PGA event that week was played in…MEXICO!
Now I don’t know much about Bedminster but if not top-flight it’s not a dump either. Good course and even tour worthy. The resort itself? I don’t know but I gather it’s okay. Not great but okay. Trump National down across the river from DC near Sterling Virginia is a pretty decent course and the place is new enough it hadn’t become run down. Again, not top class but still respectable. The real jewels are over in the UK and while their are some rich conservative Brits who turn up their noses at Trump still support his ownership of a couple of iconic courses. Of course being Trump he had to start trying to fuck around with them so even if they were no longer owned by him there’s not way they’d be considered for addition to what in golf is known as “The Rota” – the collection of courses the R&A chooses from when selecting sites for The Open. (What we call the British Open)
But they are worth a lot of money. Of course Trump overpaid for them to begin with and then sunk tens of millions into “improvements” in the clubhouses and accomodations. In the best of times he’d be unlikely to get even in the ballpark of what he’s sunk into those places so he’d have to take a loss. With Turnberry he might actually have some ridiculously wealthy Brit who loves golf and is “old school” that would pay a fair price to get it out of Trump’s hands. But that was before. Now they’d offer less than they would have even six months ago.
However, here’s where it gets both interesting and literally perhaps dangerous for Trump. Since the Trump Org is a private, family owned business he’s never been able to explain how, with all the financial trouble he was in when he bought (and sunk all the extra money into) those UK courses/properties came from. No major bank, at least a western one lent it to him. And that my friend leads us to chats during rounds with Fredo 1 and Fredo 2 who told golf writers no one who’s not a golf fiend has ever heard of “we get all the money we need from Russia” when asked where Trump got all the money to buy and add to those places!
I think it’s safe to safe “Russian money” means Pooties oligarch pals which since he’s going to demand tribute means Pootie too. Especially now after the disaster Russia has become since the Ukraine invasion they are going to want every dollar they can get back from Trump so they can try to hide it. How do you think they, and Putin himself will react to being told “Sorry, but these places have to get sold and you’ll only get back thirty percent or so of what you loaned me on the sly.” I’d imagine not well at all. And if he gets convicted in NYC on top of this financial hit he’s taking they’ll be lucky to get THAT much back from him. Not to mention other money they’ve fronted him that he hasn’t paid back. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump isn’t in hock at least 500 million to these people.
As Engoron’s oversight people have more time to sort through things, just how much he literally owes Russian oligarchs and Putin will come to light. Not to mention the almost certain vast sums of money he’s laundered for them that still falls within the stature of limitations.
Bad as things look for Trump right now odds are they are far worse than you’ve yet imagined! If aid to Ukraine gets approved soon and they can regain some inintiative and Trump by summer is looking unlikely to win in November Secret Service protection or not his life will be in real danger. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Putin has plan to kill off Trump before November, well before that actually. Making it look like “natural causes” of course. Oh, it’s likely what actuallly happended would be discerned but I can see how we’d got to extraordinary lengths to keep it quiet. The firestorm if such a thing became public is terrifying to contemplate.
His demise would be easy enough to arrange. He mostly hires undocumented workers to staff Mardo Largo and Bedminster and Pootie could easily slip someone in who could maybe do the deed with some hard to detect poison. Not that I’m advocating that possibility, but his demise would not be lamented by me.
he hobnobs with Russians all the time, and is not smart enough to spot an assassin. granted he is famously afraid of poison which is why the fast food diet, but he doesn’t suspdct his own cooks.
Very interesting analysis, and — as usual — a very informative comment string! There’s one source for Trump Relief that no one has mentioned yet, however: Saudi Arabia. If the Saudis could afford to drop $2 billion on Jared even after it was clear that Daddy-in-Law would no longer be president, MBS could certainly take $500 million for Trump’s damages out of his petty cash drawer. True, he’d be gambling on Trump’s chances of winning in November, but maybe he’d think the gamble was worth it.
Musk could bail him out with pocket change, too, and might be nutjob enough to do it.
Murphy I’m sorry but nobody else seems to care
the shear courage Nolvany showed
Putin was going to kill him
and we went back anyway and was arrested
we seldom see,
true courage,,
there are still heroes
on our midst…
Thanks for that timely reminder! Hearing about Trump’s judgment got me higher than I’ve been in months, then Navalny’s murder brought me right back down again. He wasn’t an angel (some of his speeches show an unfortunate tinge of xenophobia), but he was a true hero, and probably the best alternative available to Putin. Was returning to Russia an act of extreme bravery or excessive foolhardiness? Only future historians will try to answer that question…
We saw what happened to Danzel Washington in Training Day and he only owed the Russians a million! We also know the Saudis aren’t above luring an American citizen, who wrote for a Washington paper, to a meeting to be taken apart with tin snipes. Biden winning in November could spell more than just money trouble for putin’s puppet!